Into the Trapdoor
by Jym Streat
Summary: Wonderland. A place of dreams and adventure. What happens when these dreams are twisted into nightmares? Thomas Grischuk is soon to find out...
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

The small hand of the large grandfather clock moved closer to twelve as Thomas sat staring at this, his only way of telling what might be going on outside of the room that was his prison. People would be leaving work for lunch, teenagers and children would be at school studying.

And Thomas' wife would wonder where he was and why he wasn't home last night.

He leaned back against the chair that had been his hell for the last twenty-four hours and stared at the ceiling where a single bulb hung. It was the only source of light in the room and he found it comforting to stare at regardless, of the burning pain in his eyes.

He looked away and his eyes strayed to the door. No knob. Only a dead bolt that could only be activated and deactivated with a key. Who had this key, Thomas did not know…

_He was late again. Alice was going to be on his case if he didn't rush. Thomas pushed his thirty-seven year old legs to go as fast as they could, the bag of groceries heavy in his hands. He rounded the corner at the end of his street and stopped abruptly. Something didn't feel right._

_He shrugged it off as bad nerves and continued to walk, albeit more slowly. He turned onto his front walk, and heard rustling in the shrubs and flowers to his right. He paused and shot his gaze that way. His cat, Checkers, came strutting up to him and rubbed against his leg. His heart was beating a furious tattoo on the inside of his chest but he reached down, scratched the feline behind the ears and continued on._

_He was halfway up the walk before he felt the sharp pain in his head and fell, unconscious, to the ground…_

He knew Alice would think nothing amiss. She would think that he had stayed at work with his cell phone off. It had happened many times before. It could be another couple of days before she thought anything of his absence.

He was alone.

In an empty room, devoid of any features but the chair, the bulb, the clock and the locked door.

He began thinking of what anyone could want with him. He was a simple computer programmer with a wife and a cat. He had done nothing to harm anyone as far as he knew and yet here he sat. Thinking. And for all of his thinking, nothing came to him and he began to drowse…

_Checkers was dancing. She was up on two legs and doing a jig. Thomas stared, uncertain as to what was happening. He approached her and bent to pick her up, but she danced back. He began to make chase but she danced just outside his reach every time he made a swipe at her._

_Finally, sick of the silly game, Thomas dove at her. He landed hard with a gasp and lay there for a moment. He knew that he had hit Checkers but he couldn't feel her beneath him. He stood and looked at the spot he had landed. There was nothing there. Checkers was gone, vanished into the nothing that surrounded him…_

A slamming door jarred him awake. A caucasian man wearing clothes of no particular interest was facing away from him, sliding the dead bolt back into place.

"Hey! Who are you? Where am I? What do you want with me?" he began yelling the moment he was fully awake. The man turned to look at him. He was wearing masquerade that covered the top half of his face but Thomas could see his sardonic grin and he hated him all the more for it.

"Which question would you like me to answer first?" the man asked. Thomas began to respond but the man cut him off. "I'll answer all at once if you'd like. I am a man of little importance, a simple janitor in a building not far from your own office, and this is my home. What I want with you is of no matter because the simple truth is, I want nothing with you. You are simply a distraction from the mundane. I do grow oh so tired of the boring mockery of a life I live in the outside world so I come here where life is as I want it to be."

"But…why me?" Thomas stuttered out.

"For the simple reason that I knew you would not be missed, at least for a little while," the man's grin was now replaced with something just short of a frown. "I'll be right back," he said and turned back for the door.

"Don't do this! I've done nothing! My wife will know I'm missing," he paused. "Get back here!"

The man ignored him and unlocked the door. He swung it open and Thomas leaned forward, hoping for a view of the world outside, but the brighter light from beyond the door temporarily blinded him. But as quick as the door was opened, it shut.

"Hungry?" The man now faced Thomas holding a slightly wrinkled brown paper grocery bag. Thomas' grocery bag. His heart sunk, but he was grateful because he was fairly hungry.

"Yes," he answered. The man pulled a baguette out of the bag and threw it on his lap.

"Enjoy," he said and turned for the door.

"Wait!" Thomas yelled. "Aren't you going to untie my hands?"

The man stood halfway through the door. "Now where would the fun in that be?" He stepped through and was gone.

Thomas struggled against the ropes that bound his wrists. Now that the thought was in his head, he realized he was ravenously hungry and he had to reach the bread. He began struggling harder, and harder until finally one hand got free. He didn't even pause to work on the other one. He grabbed the bread and took a large bite. Too large in fact. He began to choke. He started to pound himself furiously on the chest but to no avail.

He leaned back against the chair. Too hard. The chair fell backwards and Thomas closed his eyes for the impact that was sure to come.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

Instead of the bone jarring landing he expected Thomas felt lighter. The sound of the crash didn't come, only the ticking of the clock. Only now it was more than one clock. He opened his eyes and looked around. There were clocks of all sizes, all around him but they were moving. Up. Toward the ceiling. But that didn't make sense. Clocks don't fly.

Thomas looked down.

The clocks weren't moving up. He was falling down. The floor was still a long way off but that didn't make him any less scared of the fall. It made it worse.

As he fell nothing changed. He fell past clocks in this long, vertical, brick tunnel that felt like a well…with clocks. Finally, he could make out details of the room below. The red and yellow tiles, the lone table centered in the room. And the hundreds of clocks placed along the wall.

He closed his eyes for the landing that was sure to kill him…

It never came. He landed lightly on his feet but kept his eyes closed for one minute. Two. After five he opened his eyes and looked around. It didn't make any sense. He should be dead. But he wasn't. He walked over to the table.

There was a small plate sitting on the out of place table with cookies or crackers or something on it, along with the kind of tag you see on a christmas gift, with only two words on it.

_Take one._

Before heeding the tags advice Thomas decided to poke around the room a bit. All he found was clocks, clocks and more clocks. Shifting them around he found more of the same brick that was to be found in the walls of the tunnel above him.

Table, clocks, wall.

No door.

He stepped back up to the table and pulled a quick three-sixty to see if he may've missed anything.

Clocks, wall, table.

He began to turn back to the table when he saw it.

Behind a larger clock pushed against the wall he saw a discrepancy in the brick. Just the bare hint of a curved line of wood. Thomas approached the clock and tried to shift it to the side, but to no avail. He leaned his back against the side of it and pushed with all of his weight. The clock shifted one inch. Two. Tired, Thomas put his hands on his knees for a moment and thought.. Maybe something was holding the clock to the wall from the back.

He grabbed the front of the clock and pulled. It didn't budge. He opened the door on the front of the clock and watched the pendulum swing. Beyond the swinging arm he saw the slight glimmer of brass.

There was no back to the clock.

He pushed his head all the way into the clock and looked around. He saw that the wood continued into a long arch. A door.

If Thomas had been standing straight, the top of the door would be level with his knees. He didn't see what the use of a door so small was. He wouldn't be able to fit.

He turned to the doorknob and twisted it.

"Locked!" a voice screamed at him. Thomas leapt back in shock and looked around. Who had said that? "Over here you twit." The voice was coming from within the clock. But that didn't make sense. Did it?

He pushed his head back into the clock and looked back at the doorknob. He couldn't move. His mouth was open slightly giving him a vacant look.

The door was alive. Eyes had appeared just over the knob and the large old-fashioned keyhole was being used as a mouth. "What are you staring at nitwit? Never seen a doorknob before?"

Thomas couldn't speak.

"Did you want to pass through? Or, did you just want to stare at me like a buffoon?"

Thomas found his voice. "How could I pass through? You're locked."

"Oh, but you have the key."

"The key? I don't have a key of any kind."

"But you do. I saw you standing at the table and that's where the key has always been," the doorknob must've been getting bored, for at this point, he yawned. Thomas looked through the keyhole and saw a fire. A large one, bigger than him, yet so far away that it seemed to fit in this small doorknob's mouth. On top of that, there were people dancing around it.

"There was no key on the table," Thomas said but he turned to look anyway. As he thought he saw only the table, the plate, the tag.

"Well, how do you think to get through here without the key?"

"I don't know," he said thoughtfully. "Perhaps, you know of a way?"

"Nope," the doorknob said with another yawn.

"Whatever," Thomas pulled his head out of the clock, stood and walked back to the table once again.

The plate, the tag.

The tag still read the same thing..

_Take one, _it said.

Intrigued, Thomas pulled one off of the plate and examined it. Nothing seemed wrong with it. He smelled it. Delicious. He decided that whatever risk there may've been was obliterated by such a sweet smell. There was no way something that smelled so amazing could do him harm.

He took a bite.

Nothing happened. The cookie tasted horrible but it didn't kill him so it was fine by him. He turned and reached down to place the remainder of the cookie on the table.

Reached. Down.

He had begun to grow. The table was now down to his waist and shrinking. Whether everything was getting smaller or he was getting larger, Thomas did not know.

But either way, he was freaking out.

The table was now much shorter than he himself was. Pretty soon he took up the entire room and stopped growing.

"What do I do?!" He shouted in the direction of the door. His knees were pressed into his throat so it came out as a strange gurgle.

"Go through the door," he heard faintly.

Through the door? He wouldn't have fit before. How he was supposed to now, he did not know.

He adjusted himself until he was on his stomach, his face was by the door with his legs near vertical up the tunnel he had fallen through. The table was flattened beneath him.

"What do I do?" he screamed at the door.

"Unlock the door," the knob said.

"I have no key!" he shouted.

"Looks like you're out of luck then. But I trust you'll figure something out. Just think!"

Thomas was thinking but all he could think of was finding that key or picking the lock somehow. He figured the first choice was out of the question since he could hardly move but he had nothing to pick the lock with.

He decided to try with his fingers.

Thomas pulled his arms out in front of him and tentatively stuck a finger in the keyhole. Nothing happened so he pushed another finger into the hole.

The hole closed.

Thomas screamed in agony. One finger had been pushed out of the hole but the other was caught firmly in it. He pulled as hard as he could and finally his hand was free.

But was also missing about a centimeter of his finger. The blood began to flow.

"Ahhhh," he yelled. Heavy droplets of his blood began to fall to the floor. Since he was so large, larger than the room, each drop added to a large puddle that was forming. The level raised quickly.

"Why'd you bite me?" he screamed.

"Why'd you put your hands in my mouth?" the doorknob shot back.

"I had to get you unlocked somehow."

"You should've used the key."

"I don't have your damn key!" Thomas was getting mad and he let it show.

The blood was lapping against the bottom of the doorknob.

Thomas awkwardly stood and the table popped back up from its flat position on the floor.

"What are you doing?" the doorknob asked. "I'm going to drown."

"Good," Thomas said. "You deserve nothing less." He looked at the table and saw that the plate was still there. A half eaten cookie was sitting on the table next to it. The third item surprised him.

There was a small bottle sitting there with a tag like the one on the plate.

_Drink me_.

Realizing his thirst Thomas grabbed the bottle and tossed it back quickly. It was hardly a gulp in his new, large mouth but it quenched his thirst well. He dropped the bottle and began looking for a way out. He looked up at the face of one of the clocks, hoping for answers there.

Looked. Up.

He was shrinking, and more rapidly than he had grown.

Suddenly his legs shot up and he hung for an impossible second in the air. Then he began to fall.

Thomas was sick of falling.

He landed in the bottle he had just dropped, his own blood up to his knees within the small bottle. It was floating though and that was good.

The bottle drifted slowly toward the clock with the door.

The knobs mouth was closed as the bottle approached and Thomas was sure there was going to be a crash but at the last second the knob opened its mouth to breathe but it got a mouthful of blood and a small bottle going through instead.

Thomas turned and observed the new environment.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

He was floating on a red sea. A sea of his blood. The current was carrying him toward the fire he had seen through the doorknob's mouth. He could faintly hear voices coming from that direction but couldn't make out any words.

Floating on his own blood was disconcerting and his finger burned fiercely but he was alive and that was all that was important to him. He had lost a lot of blood but he couldn't tell. He lost enough to make the ocean on which he was now stranded but he felt full of energy.

There was detritus floating all about him. Clocks. A table. A large chunk of bread. And a skin toned mountain.

The tip of his finger.

Thomas turned about in his small glass cell. He was half-tempted to break out of it but knew he would drown for sure and what fate is worse than drowning in your own blood?

He floated through the sea toward the bank where people were dancing around the fire. Now that he was closer he could see that the fire was really small. As small as it had seemed from the room on the other side of the door.

He could also hear the words now.

"Forward, backward, inward, outward, come and join the chase, nothing could be drier, than a jolly caucus race." Thomas couldn't make sense of the words. He had no idea what they meant but he was now thoroughly interested in what could be happening on the shore of this ocean.

Underneath the chanting he could barely hear another, higher voice saying, "I'm late, I'm late, let me go, you fools. I must go. I've no time to run in circles. Oh the queen'll have my head for sure. I'm Late, I'm late, I'm late."

Thomas sat and waited to hit the shore for he had nothing else to do. Except tell the time. A clock was always in view so he never had want to know how many seconds had passed since the last minute.

Finally the bottle bumped into the shore and came to rest. It was still vertical and Thomas couldn't get out so he pushed against the side until it fell and he crawled out.

"Backward, forward, outward, inward, bottom to the top, never a beginning, there can never be a stop." Thomas now saw that there weren't people dancing around the tiny fire but animals. Starfish, lobsters, salmon, an owl, a crow, a parrot and a small white rabbit running among the fray wearing a fancy shirt and constantly looking at his pocket watch.

"I'm late, I'm late, I'm late," it shouted over the din of the singing. Standing over it all on a large rock was the most peculiar bird Thomas had ever seen. It had a wide lower body but it's neck was skinny and supported the creatures large head. The bird was wearing an overcoat over a light blue shirt. And on it's head a powdered wig. The miniscule fire was sitting on the rock next to him.

Thomas approached the bird and looked up at him. His beak was moving to form the words of the song but it looked bizarre for a bird to be singing, as if the sound of it wasn't enough. Suddenly a wave of blood crashed against the shore submerging all of the animals but the bird on his rock. Thomas was washed to the top of the rock where he held on trying not to go under the blood.

"To skipping, hopping, tripping fancy free and gay, started it tomorrow, but will finish yesterday." This part was sung by the bird alone. As he was singing he lifted the small fire above the tide so it wouldn't go out. Thomas was shocked at the daring move but the bird didn't get burned.

The tide went back out to the ocean and the bird put the fire back down as the other creatures reemerged along with the rabbit who was shouting. "Mr. Dodo! I must go. Stop the singing and running. I'm late, I'm late, I'm late."

The bird and the other animals ignored him and continued their song, "'Round and 'round and 'round we go, until forevermore, for once we were behind, but now we find we are be-" At that moment the tide swept back in and this time Thomas was pulled under.

Even below the red fluid he could here their singing. "Forward, backward, inward, outward, come and join the chase." The tide receded again and now Thomas was beneath the feet, flippers and tentacles of the animals. They pretended he wasn't there and continued running and running, in endless circles. Every step they took sent pain lancing through Thomas' body.

He tried to push himself up but he kept being pushed back to the ground by the singing animals. "Nothing could be drier, than a jolly caucus race." Suddenly he felt pain in his arm and screamed. A starfish had stepped on him and it's tentacle had stabbed through his bicep. He stared at it and tried to will it healed but of course it didn't work.

He rolled to the side and nursed his injured arm. "Well, that's no way to get dry," the bird called Dodo shouted down to him.

Thomas stared at him, confused. "How are you ever to get dry running around among the liquid?"

"Well, running airs you out, obviously."

"But if you keep ending up underwater won't you just get wet again?"

"I am not underwater."

"You're also not running."

"Well, aren't you smart. Look at them running. What are they?" The dodo was getting agitated.

"Well, they're fish. And birds."

"And do fish ever get wet?"

"Well, yes and so do birds."

"Fish, don't get wet. They live in the sea."

"So, what you're saying is if you're standing on the coast and suddenly a fish leapt out and shook your hand your hand wouldn't get wet?"

"Well yes, that is exacitically what I am saying."

The rabbit continued shouting. "I'm late, I'm late, I'm late."

"You're ridiculous. I'm leaving."

"No, you are not. You may not leave until you are dry. It is the rules."

"Well, I never really was one for rules," Thomas said and began walking away from the ocean, toward the forest on the other side of the circle of runners. He reached the animals and stopped.

Starfish. Starfish. Lobster. Rabbit!

Thomas snapped his arm out and grabbed the rabbit by the collar of its shirt. "And I believe this guy has somewhere to be. He's coming too." Thomas leapt quickly between the animals and walked toward the forest.. He put the rabbit down and it instantly scurried away. "You're welcome!" Thomas shouted after him.

"No time to say hello, goodbye. I'm late, I'm late, I'm late." With that Thomas lost view of the rabbit. He shot a quick glance back to the rock with the fire.

The dodo was gone.

Thomas looked left and right nervously. Where had it gone? He saw no sign of it and relaxed. He turned to head into the woods but pulled up short.

Dodo stood in his path.

"No leaving until you are dry," the dodo shouted, emphasizing each syllable heatedly. He shoved Thomas back toward the circle and Thomas fell to the ground.

"I'm dry!" Thomas screamed in panic. He scurried backward but realized he'd end up back under the feet of the running animals and the pain in his arm told him that he did not want to do that.

He instead rolled to the side, popped to his feet and started running down the beach. As he ran he heard the heavy footfalls of the dodo behind him. "Oh, so you want to run now? You'd better be quick Jackie-boy or you'll be sorry."

Thomas sprinted toward the blood ocean, hoping to lose the bird there but before he could make it the bird tackled him from behind. He kicked his way out of the birds grasp and scrambled forward but dodo grabbed his leg and pulled, flipping Thomas onto his back.

The bird kneeled on Thomas chest and wrapped his hands around his throat. "Are you dry now?" it shouted in Thomas' face. The dodo pushed his head underneath the sea of blood and held him there for one second. Two. Then, pulled him back to the surface. "Come on! Get dry!"

Thomas was flailing. He couldn't breathe. The birds hands were wrapped tightly around his throat. He moved his arms trying to find something, anything, to grab onto. His hand found something solid. He gripped it and swung as hard as he could toward the dodo's head.

The dodo was caught by surprise and flew off of Thomas. Thomas immediately leapt onto him and started bashing the birds head in with the object.

He went wild. Long after the dodo stopped moving Thomas kept hitting it. Eventually someone grabbed his arm. Thomas looked up. All of the creatures from the circle were standing around him and one brave owl had come forward to stop him.

Thomas stood and let the clock fall to the ground.

The animals dispersed. The fish to the sea, the birds to the sky. The owl stayed where he stood for a moment and opened his beak as if to say something but instead he just flew off.

Thomas stood where he was and stared down at the large dodo for a moment. The sight made him feel sick so he walked to where the rabbit had entered the forest.

He shot one last look to where Dodo lay, then disappeared into the trees.


End file.
